“We’ve paid all the Banyana Banyana players, all the Sasol League teams and all the regions and we’ve started paying all the ABC Motsepe teams. We’ve paid all of them and that is our position.”
The South African Football Association (Safa) have rubbished claims by Safoca (the South African Football Clubs Association) that a number of teams in the lower divisions have not received their grants for the last three seasons.
On Saturday, Independent Media got hold of the letter from Safoca which was sent to Safa, explaining their grievances about the ABC Motsepe League teams were not paid their travelling allowances and prize monies for the last three seasons.
The letter goes on to mention that the teams in the Regional League, previously sponsored by SA Breweries, were also not paid for the same period of three seasons by the association.
Safa has been at the centre of attention in recent weeks following a leaked report from former acting chief executive Gay Mokoena where he insists president Danny Jordaan is running the association like his own fiefdom and has flouting corporate governance principles and was violating Safa statutes.
The turmoil in the association comes while the country is under lockdown, a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic coronavirus. However, the current state of the nation has seen a number of businesses close down as Safa also had to cut salaries and terminate services of certain people and companies.
However, in an interview with Independent Media this week, Jordaan (pictured) indicated that his conscience is clear on the payroll matter, saying they’ve always ensured that they paid the lower divisions the money due to them in time.
“We’ve paid all the Banyana Banyana players, all the Sasol League teams and all the regions and we’ve started paying all the ABC Motsepe teams. We’ve paid all of them and that is our position,” Jordaan said.
“This bogus organisation, representing clubs, we are going to deal with them. The Safa constitution is clear on how you form a structure. You call a meeting and the members must vote for a leadership, and they must tell us who’s present. And who voted. So, who voted for this man to be the president?”
Safoca is led by Lucas Molefe, a former journalist, who says that he formed the organisation so that he can be the voice of the voiceless, considering that the teams in the lower divisions haven’t been getting a lot of attention.
Over the years, Molefe says he’s been in constant communication with Safa over a number of issues that haven’t been resolved. However, his grievances doesn’t mean he has anything against Jordaan.
“After he won the elections for the second time, he sent me a WhatsApp message saying that ‘I won with 95%’. My message to him was that ‘congratulations Mr President but go and fix your province (house) because they are the ones who make you seem as though you are running a solo show in the association’,” Molefe told the media.
“You must rebuild the structure. But even today, he didn’t, instead he consulted with the same people. When I said that he must fix the province I meant that he must go and consult the clubs. So, he hasn’t done that.”
Molefe also explained that it was only on Wednesday that some of the ABC Motsepe League clubs were paid their monthly grants by the association for the month of April.
